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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22795666">puzzle pieces</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdphoenix/pseuds/jdphoenix'>jdphoenix</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>falling into place [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate History, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Season/Series 03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 18:16:02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,856</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22795666</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdphoenix/pseuds/jdphoenix</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Thirty days after Will's forty day mission began, the uprising hit. Not that that should have any effect on a guy stranded in space.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jemma Simmons/Grant Ward, Will Daniels/Jemma Simmons</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>falling into place [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1645258</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>57</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>puzzle pieces</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Who the hell are you people?” Will asks. Not to be rude or anything, he’s just … it’s been a really long week, you know?</p><p>“I told you,” Coulson says with a smile. “We’re SHIELD.”</p><p>Will finally gives in and drops back onto the pillows. The blond who shot electricity at those guards—out of his <em>hands—</em>has too much of a doctor face to let his relief show, but it’s there in the easing of his jaw.</p><p>“Thank God,” Will sighs. It’s the best news he’s heard in- God, in at least a year.</p><p>The doc shoots Coulson a look. There have been a lot of those between Coulson and his team. They might be SHIELD, but they’re not Will’s long-awaited rescue party. They came for Coulson. Shit, <em>Coulson</em> didn’t even come for him. He went into Hell for his own reasons.</p><p>“They told you about the uprising,” says the British guy nestled into the corner by the door. They’re all pretty tight in here. It’s some sort of box, about the size of a backyard shed, that’s flying them up to a plane that he’s told will take them somewhere far, far from their captors.</p><p>“Yeah,” Will says, the word coming out heavy. He doesn’t know if that’s because of the drugs already pumping into his system or the weight of the uprising on his mind.</p><p>Hydra. Back again. Never gone. He wants to think that’s why he and his team were left out there, that the uprising just hit at a bad time and no one thought to come for them—or everyone who would have was dead; it was a pretty high clearance mission—but he’s had that kind of optimism beaten out of him by now.</p><p>These people know him. They were all shocked to see him in turn—Coulson back in Hell, the Brit when he looked back from shooting Hydra agents to say a cheeky hello (didn’t quite come off around his shock though), the doc when he caught him mid-stumble into this weird box—and they all know his name. Each of them said it with an awe like they thought he was dead.</p><p>Maybe that’s why no rescue ever came. Maybe, after the uprising settled out and SHIELD got its feet under it again, someone learned about his mission and assumed, it being days or weeks or months after the forty days were up, that they were all dead out there.</p><p>Only most of them, Will thinks sourly. Or maybe he says it because Coulson interrupts the conversation he’s fallen into with the others to lay a hand on his shoulder. Will can’t see him leaning over him. Either his eyes are closed or he’s gone blind, but he’s too tired to worry about which it is until after he wakes up.</p><p>“Just rest now. By the time you wake up, we’ll be home. And, hey-” he gives Will’s shoulder a little squeeze- “we’ve got a surprise for you when you get there.”</p><p>
  <em>“</em>
  <em>And Will,” It said, in a wheezing thread of a voice from collapsed lungs. It laid one cold, stolen hand on his shoulder. He was shaking so bad he could barely stand, only managed it thanks to the grunts holding him at bay, otherwise he would’ve knocked the dead thing off. “Soon I’ll have a surprise for you. Something worth coming home for.”</em>
</p><p>The familiar scene very nearly shakes Will back to consciousness. His eyes snap open. Bright white everywhere overpowers his vision. He just sees their faces amid the shadows of their bodies, just hears the doc saying his blood pressure’s spiking, and then the blackness sweeps over him from all sides and he’s out.</p><p> </p><p>His body’s exhausted, but after two years of nothing but the same day in, day out, his mind won’t shut off.</p><p> </p><p>“<em>Can’t say I’m surprised. Given what he’s been through, it’s a miracle he’s conscious at all.”</em></p><p> </p><p>“<em>Sir, are you sure you want to keep him-”</em></p><p>
  <em> “You gave him to me. Did you think I would toss away a gift from my most devoted so easily?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em> “No, no, of course not. I meant no disrespect.” Scraping, like footsteps moving away and the voice goes with them.</em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Besides, I promised him a gift. It will ease Grant’s mind to know he has received it.”</em>
</p><p> </p><p>“<em>-just a precaution. Lincoln’s sure he’ll be fine.”</em></p><p>
  <em> “Oh. That’s- that’s good.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em> “I know you didn’t really know each other-”</em>
</p><p>
  <em> “No, no. It’s good.” A tremulous breath and the next words come out stronger. “Of course it’s good news. I just never thought…”</em>
</p><p> </p><p>“<em>Are you really surprised? Brubaker’s always been a butterfingers.”</em></p><p><em> “Oh, you piece of </em>shit<em>.”</em></p><p> </p><p>“<em>-’s an Inhuman. That or something happened to him on that planet—we’ll have to check Daniels, keep him in quarantine just in case.”</em></p><p>
  <em> “She won’t like that.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em> “It’s for her own good. She’ll understand.” A heavy sigh. “Ward should be dead. I crushed his chest, felt his ribs collapse. But you saw him today, he’s better than ever and now he’s leading Hydra on their newest crusade.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em> A snort. “Like the bastard wasn’t hard enough to kill before.”</em>
</p><p> </p><p>That’s what wakes him up finally. They don’t know, they don't <em>understand</em>. He needs to tell them, warn them. He drags himself out of the warm darkness of sleep and into the sterile light of SHIELD medical.</p><p>The silver eagle on the far wall nearly brings tears to his eyes. He sucks it up though. No time to blubber like a baby, he’s gotta warn Coulson what he’s really up against. Besides, Coulson and the others may not be here—just how long ago did he hear that conversation?—but that doesn’t mean he’s alone.</p><p>There’s a woman sitting in what looks to be a moderately comfortable (as far as Will’s concerned it might as well be the king of all Lay-Z-Boys) armchair, reading aloud from <em>Winnie the Pooh</em>. He looks around, expecting to see someone else who this might be for, but it’s just the two of them.</p><p>“Ma’am?” he asks. Or tries to. It comes out more of a croak and nearly sets his throat on fire. He’d cough, but he’s pretty sure that might kill him.</p><p>“Oh!” she rushes over, a flurry of movement and concern. She helps him sit up, gives him some water, checks his vitals, and all the while keeps talking. “You’re up.” “I’m sorry.” “We didn’t think you’d wake so soon.” “You’re all right, just a little dry throat. Nothing to worry about.” And on and on and on, even after she’s calmed down and pulled that chair up to the side of his bed. “Not to worry, Lincoln said you’re fine. Or you will be once you’ve recovered.”</p><p>That’s good to hear. But he’s a little more interested in her hand holding his. It’s comforting, reassuring, but something about it screams intimate in a way that’s inappropriate for his nurse to be acting. He lifts his eyes to her and his eyebrow too, silently communicating <em>what’s up</em>. Or he hopes he is. He hasn’t had much practice communicating with anyone who wasn’t an alien monster in a while now.</p><p>She flushes and has the grace to look embarrassed. But she doesn’t let go of his hand right away. That doesn’t come until she’s glanced over her shoulder at the window.</p><p>Now he looks around, this place looks like a bigger version of that box that carried him out of Hydra. And just like the box, it’s got windows.</p><p>The woman scowls at a pair of individuals standing out there, both of whom try to look like they weren’t blatantly spying just a second ago. She crosses the room to a panel between the window and a portion of the wall that juts in. A quick tap and the windows around the room darken to a slick black.</p><p>“There,” she says pertly, returning to his side and taking up his hand again. “There are still the cameras of course, but we can at least have the illusion of privacy and no one will be able to hear what we say.”</p><p>“O-kay?” Will’s not really sure where this is headed.</p><p>“I’m Jemma Simmons,” she says with what is clearly a forced smile. “You might have heard of me as half of FitzSimmons?”</p><p>He might nod. Might not. She doesn’t seem to need his response.</p><p>“I’m the head of the new SHIELD’s science division, such as it is.”</p><p>“Ah.” That explains it.</p><p>She frowns at him. “What?”</p><p>“I’ve been on an alien planet for two years. I know the risks. Give it to me straight. Do I have some horrific disease?”</p><p>He instantly regrets the teasing when she pales and pulls her hand away.</p><p>“No. No, you’re fine. I- I’m not here in my capacity as a SHIELD agent, I was merely introducing myself.”</p><p>“Then why are you here?”</p><p>Will’s not a spy, for all he’s a SHIELD agent—or was, no telling where he stands now, seeing as he’s legally dead and the organization went belly up there for a minute. He got hired on as a pilot and potential astronaut. But he had to go through the Ops classes, same as everyone else, and he’s got at least some experience reading people. Simmons is fiddling with her fingers. She’s anxious. Scared. But not of him—if she was, she never would’ve blacked out the windows.</p><p>“I know we’ve only just met, Agent Daniels,” she says, blinking rapidly. “But I have a favor to ask of you. A terrible, unfair favor that I will not blame you in the slightest if you refuse.”</p><p>She pauses then. He’s guessing more because of the effort to say what she needs to say than for dramatic effect, but he feels the need to fill the silence.</p><p>“All right,” he says, hoping he still has enough skill to pitch his voice to be gentle.</p><p>He must succeed because she gives him that smile again. This time it’s real and all the more beautiful for it. He feels a faint quaver in his chest and sternly tells his heart to stuff it. She’s the first woman he’s seen—aside from the Hydra agents who were as sexless as possible in their kevlar vests and body armor—in two years and a reaction to that is perfectly natural. Treating it like it’s real and not just psychosomatic, that’s not.</p><p>“But first, to better explain <em>why</em> I’m asking this favor, I’d like to tell you about a former teammate of mine.”</p><p>He smiles, hoping to encourage the ease that’s worked its way back into her voice. “Not like I’m gonna complain about listening to a beautiful woman talk after a year in isolation.”</p><p>The reminder dims her smile somewhat, but it doesn’t stop her. “He was a specialist. It was his job to protect us in the field, which he did quite well. I suppose that was why it was so difficult for us all when he turned out to be Hydra.”</p><p> </p><p>“<em>Ward, please,” Fitz said while a Hydra agent searched him for weapons. “This isn’t you-”</em></p><p>
  <em> He cut off at the sound of Jemma’s sharp intake of breath. The agent searching her stood, purposefully dragging his body along her back as he went. His hands slid up her thighs to rest on her hips. “This one’s clean,” he said, his breath falling over her neck, and never had those words sounded quite so dirty.</em>
</p><p>
  <em> A dark blur flew inches from her face but she would never know if it was that or the sound of a nose breaking when it came into contact with an elbow that caused her to cry out and jump away. The guard landed on the floor, cursing violently and clutching at what was left of his nose while blood soaked into the dirt beneath him.</em>
</p><p>
  <em> “You okay?” Ward asked. He tipped her chin up so he could get a good look at her.</em>
</p><p>
  <em> For a moment she felt some of that same hope Fitz still clung to. Maybe, just maybe, this was all some terrible misunderstanding. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>And then Ward turned his attention from her to the guard. He squatted down beside him and said, as casually as if he were telling Skye the next set of drills to run through, “If you touch her like that again, I’m gonna cut your hands off.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em> Ward—the Ward who she thought she knew—would have protected her from that man, yes. But he never would have made such a visceral threat with such pleasure, almost as if he was looking forward to the prospect of carrying it out.</em>
</p><p>
  <em> Despite all her outward certainty, this was the moment she truly realized what Fitz wouldn’t until they were on the bottom of the ocean: everything Ward ever did or said, every ounce of caring he showed for any of them, it was all a con. The Ward they knew and cared for in return, he was worse than dead, he was a lie.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>“It was less than an hour after that he dropped us out of a plane—my own personal greatest fear.”</p><p>“Before or after?” Will asks.</p><p>She seems thrown by the question. “Before. He was there when it happened. He caught me, saved my life. That was all part of the cover, of course.”</p><p>Makes sense. Save the girl. Be the hero. No one’s gonna question you after a thing like that. He’s pretty sure there was a whole lesson on it in Infiltration 101.</p><p>“Is that when you fell in love with him?”</p><p>Now that one really does throw her. “How did you know?” she breathes.</p><p>“It’s kinda obvious he broke your heart. I just figured…”</p><p>She drops her gaze to her hands. “It’s not my heart I worry about.”</p><p>She looks so sad. He’s kinda hoping this favor she’s gonna ask him for is to murder Ward for her. He wouldn’t really mind doing that, not with her small, pained voice and her bent shoulders and her heartbroken expression all burning into his memory.</p><p>“He was captured, thank goodness,” she says, sounding for all the world like she never stopped telling her story. “Spent nearly six months in this very base, rotting away. We had hoped to gain some useful intelligence from him, but…”</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>She sat, as she did every morning, in the viewing room above Vault D. The two weren’t directly connected of course but she was just next door. That fact had saved Ward’s life the day before. She’d felt sick with his blood on her hands and every move she made calculated to bring him back from the brink. He was a murderer, a traitor, he didn’t deserve her help or her sympathy and would be doing them all a favor if he just dropped dead.</em>
</p><p>
  <em> Today she felt somewhat more conflicted.</em>
</p><p>
  <em> He was still drugged. Heavy ones to prevent him trying anything like that while his body was still weak. She wanted to say that was the cause of what she was seeing now, but he’d proven to be just as laser focused when lucid.</em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Skye,” he murmured from the spot Trip had dumped him on the bed. The word was barely audible to the microphones, but the next was plenty loud. “Ssssssss-KAH-ayyyyyy.” He reached one bandaged arm up as if for the literal sky. His face scrunched up—in pain or something else, she couldn’t be sure—and his arm dropped so heavily to his side she jumped. He shook his head furiously. “I’ll only talk to Skye!” he yelled, sounding like a petulant child. Then he sighed and all that anger seemed to flow right out of him. “She’ll understand,” he said more plaintively. “She’s the only one who’ll understand.”</em>
</p><p><em> Jemma had spent enough sleepless nights holding Skye after nightmares to know Ward was wrong about that. Skye would </em>never <em>understand his betrayal of their team and, if he continued like this, she’d fear him until the day she died.</em></p><p>
  <em> Certainly this was an extreme case, with the drugs and all, but the emotions were the same. That half-crazed desperation was the same. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Jemma shivered, wrapping her arms tight around her middle and wondering if that obsession could be uprooted and transplanted to someone else. Or would he see any other emotional tether as a threat and seek to destroy it.</em>
</p><p>
  <em> She swore—not to herself or to God, but to the tiny life within her—that it would never have to find out.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>“Wait. <em>What?</em>” Will knows the uprising is more than a year old now, hitting during the run of his original mission, before he and his people realized no one was gonna open the door to bring them home. But still, he can’t help glancing down at her flat stomach. Her hands are in her lap; she’s still fidgeting with them.</p><p>“I don’t know if I would have done what I did if he’d been, well, sane. Just another enemy agent, hailing Hydra and leaving chaos in his wake. But given the way he was acting, I obviously couldn’t let it get out he was the father.”</p><p>Yeah, Will can see that.</p><p>“My team was going to want a name and if I refused to give one, they would naturally assume the worst and in doing so discover the truth.”</p><p>Will’s still hoping she’s gonna ask him to kill this guy for her, but there’s an anxious feeling in his gut. Something’s off here. If her team cares so much and they’ve all got plenty reason to hate this Ward guy, why not take the problem to them?</p><p>“And if I claimed I’d had a one-night stand with a civilian and it somehow got back to Ward, he would realize the truth. So what I needed was a name.” She sits forward, hands clasped tight on her knees like she’s on the verge of dropping to the floor and begging him. For what, he doesn’t know. “I thought about the uprising. All those dead agents, surely one would look similar enough to Ward it would explain any potential resemblance. But I quickly realized the pickings weren’t as numerous as I’d thought. Among the single agents who perished, most are simply listed as MIA and barely half of those have known loyalties to either side. I couldn’t very well name Joe Smith as my child’s father, only to have him show up a month later, alive and well and hailing Hydra, now could I?”</p><p>Will doesn’t answer. He thinks he knows where this is going now and he really, really hopes he’s wrong.</p><p>“Besides that, SHIELD kept intricate records of its agents’ movements. I needed someone who had been on a SHIELD base at the same time I was, near enough to the time of conception so as not to raise eyebrows. And there were only three bases my team visited in that time. A trauma center in central Europe, where I didn’t once leave my team’s sight. The Hub, during the uprising. Or-”</p><p>“Or the Cube,” Will says.</p><p>She bites her lower lip, clearly not pleased with how he’s taking the news. He doesn’t know why. Far as he’s concerned, he’s taking it damn well.</p><p>“You began your pre-mission quarantine the day after we left,” she says. “I told my team that you, erm-” she hesitates, like finally saying what she’s only been implying up to now is somehow worse- “that you picked me up.”</p><p>“And fathered your child.”</p><p>“And fathered my child, yes.”</p><p>He drops his head back and presses the heels of his hands into his eyes. The IV tugs at his skin but he ignores the pain. “Did you at least make the story good? Tell them I was handsome and charming?”</p><p>He can hear the smile in her voice; probably she’s encouraged by the fact he isn’t yelling at her yet. “Oh, yes. You were very charming. I told them you won me over right off the bat with your pick-up line.”</p><p>He drops his hands and waits, not sure he wants to hear it.</p><p>“You said you were about to go into deep space and I might be the last human woman you ever saw, so wouldn’t it be best if you saw <em>all</em> of me?”</p><p>“That is terrible.”</p><p>“I thought it was sweet!”</p><p>Of course she did.</p><p>She scoots closer to him, reaching out to wrap his hand between hers once more. “I know I have no right to ask this of you—I had no right to do what I did in the first place—and if you want me to, I will go out there right now and tell my friends that I lied to them and you aren’t Mina’s father.”</p><p>“Mina?” he asks. It’s probably the least important thing she’s said, but it’s the thing his brain decides to focus on. Go figure.</p><p>If he thought her smiles up to now were something, this one blows them away. It’s not big or brilliant, it’s just a small, motherly smile of pleasure that socks him right in the gut.</p><p>“I was going to name her Wilhelmina, but Daisy told me that would be cruel.”</p><p>Now <em>that</em> is sweet. In a really weird, identity theft way. “You really went all out with this thing, huh?” He’s almost impressed. And, oddly, he’s not even that mad. Not like he was alive to be bothered. And how many dead men can say they helped out a damsel in distress <em>after</em> they kicked it?</p><p>“To keep Mina safe from Grant Ward, I would have done far worse.”</p><p>Her dark tone surprises him, but for the second time it’s the name that hits him hardest. “Wait. Grant? The Grant that Agent Coulson was chasing all over my planet?”</p><p>Simmons’ mouth drops open in a cute little O. “That’s right. I’d forgotten you met him. I assure you, he wasn’t immortal when we knew one another.”</p><p>Yeah, he met him. And he knows he’s not really immortal too.</p><p>That thing from the planet is inside his body. He curses under his breath, remembering how It taunted Brubaker, bringing up an old gripe between him and Taylor as if it really was Taylor. If it held onto anger over some stupid little tool kit, how much more is it gonna care when it finds out its new host has a daughter he never knew about?</p><p>“I know this is far too much to ask and I swear to you I wouldn’t if I had any choice—and, again, just say the word and I will walk right out that door and-”</p><p>“No!”</p><p>She blinks and he can’t blame her. He’s surprised by how angry it came out too.</p><p>“I mean, no. No, I’ll be her father. No one ever has to know anything different.”</p><p>No one ever <em>can</em>. He’ll endure her team’s judgment and change diapers and, hell, he’ll even <em>marry</em> her if it comes to it. He may have failed his team, but he won’t fail this time. He’ll do whatever it takes to make sure It never looks twice at Mina or Jemma.</p><p> </p>
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